Cabinet approves Productivity Linked Bonus for 78 days to railway employees

New Delhi, Oct 3 (PTI) The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday approved the payment of Productivity Linked Bonus of 78 days for Rs 2028.57 crore to 11,72,240 railway employees, a government press release said.

According to the release, the decision has been taken in recognition of the excellent performance by the Railway staff.

"The amount will be paid to various categories of Railway staff like Track maintainers, Loco Pilots, Train Managers (Guards), Station Masters, Supervisors, Technicians, Technician Helpers, Pointsman, Ministerial staff and other Group C staff," the release said.

"The payment of PLB acts as an incentive to motivate the railway employees for working towards improvement in the performance of the Railways," it added.

The payment of Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) to eligible railway employees is made each year before the Durga Puja/ Dussehra holidays.

"This year also, PLB amount equivalent to 78 days' wages is being paid to about 11.72 lakh non-gazetted Railway employees," it said.

It added that the maximum amount payable per eligible railway employee is Rs 17,951 for 78 days.

According to the government, the performance of Railways in the year 2023-2024 was very good as it loaded a record cargo of 1588 million tonnes and carried nearly 6.7 billion passengers.

"Many factors contributed to this record performance. These include improvement in infrastructure due to infusion of record Capex by the Government in Railways, efficiency in operations and better technology etc, the release said.

Several railway unions launched a social media campaign on Thursday demanding productivity-linked bonuses based on the Seventh Pay Commission instead of the sixth. PTI JP AS AS